The MG TB

In the summer of 1939, as the war clouds
were gathering, MG announced the TB Midget. In terms of chassis and body
options it was essentially the same as the TA, but the TB had a new engine which
was a 1250cc, ohv, four-cylinder unit. Taken from the new Morris 10, and known
as the XPAG engine, it had a much stronger bottom-end than the previous unit,
better valve timing and a better designed cylinder head. These design features
combined to give a power output of 45bhp.

MG TB 1939

The engine was backed up by a dry clutch and
a better set of ratios than before with an improved synchromesh. All of this
meant that the little car looked very promising indeed, but the onset of war
stopped production as MG had other, more important, tasks to carry out.

The MGTA suffered from a poor performing
engine and in 1939 the MGTB was introduced with the now famous XPAG engine.
Only a few were produced as in a few months World War II broke out. At the
outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, production of cars at MG in Abingdon
had given way to production and maintenance of machines of war, as it had at
most other engineering plants over the whole country. A very wide variety of
jobs were undertaken, ranging from servicing guns and production of aircraft
parts to overhauling tanks. No job was too large, too small, or too difficult
for the workers at MG.